MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. –
With Alabama sprinting to a dominating 28-0 lead over Notre Dame by halftime, it’s unlikely that one suspect call by the officials could have changed the course of the 2013 NCS National Championship game.

But what if?

Alabama was up 7-0 when Christion Jones muffed a punt return on the end of a 43-yard punt by Notre Dame’s Ben Turk.

The Irish appeared to recover the loose ball. But flags flew, and the team of Pac-12 officials determined that Notre Dame had interfered with the punt returner’s ability to catch the ball.

Huh?

ESPN’s video replays clearly showed that if anything, Jones had fumbled the ball when he collided with a couple of his own players, not the Irish.

Yet the call stood, and Notre Dame incurred a 15 yard penalty that gave Alabama the ball on its own 39 yard line.

The Tide’s ensuing drive ended in the opposite end zone, with Michael Williams catching a 3-yard touchdown pass from Alabama QB A.J. McCarron.

The Irish rued the call.

But Stanford fans might call it karma. When the Cardinal played Notre Dame on Oct. 13, the Irish came out on the winning end of a controversial fourth down call in which officials ruled that Cardinal running back Stepfan Taylor was brought down just shy of the goal line on fourth-and-1 from the 1 in overtime.

Notre Dame won that day, 20-13.

But luck wasn’t with the Irish on Monday night.

No fight in the Irish

Notre Dame had five offensive drives and five third down conversion attempts in the first half.

To put that in perspective, the Irish’s defense gave up an average of 286 yards per game during the season.

The Tide’s 28 points in the first half was more than any team has scored against Notre Dame’s defense in a full game this year.

Alabama domination

Until Notre Dame finally scored on an Everett Golson touchdown in the third quarter, Alabama had held opponents scoreless in BCS National Championship play for 108 minutes and seven seconds.

The Tide also extended their streak of unanswered points in the title game to 69. That dates back to the final 13 points of Alabama’s 37-21 win over Texas in the 2010 title game in Pasadena.

The 28-point half time deficit tied the record for the second-largest half time deficit in the history of the BCS National Championship.

Nebraska gets the dubious honor of being on the receiving end of the biggest first-half beat-down in title game history. In the 2002 game, the No. 1 Cornhuskers trailed No. 2 Miami 34-0 at the half.

Record-setting crowd benefits Newtown shooting victims

The 81,120-strong crowd set a new attendance record for all events at Sun Life Stadium, breaking the previous record of 78,468 that was set when Florida and Oklahoma faced off in the 2009 BCS National Championship game.

The ticket numbers will go toward a good cause.

To honor the victims of the Newtown (Conn.) elementary school shooting, the Orange Bowl Committee agreed that for every person who attended the BCS Championship Game, it would donate $1 to the Sandy Hook School Memorial Scholarship Fund.

With the record-setting crowd, that translates to a donation of $81,120.

Celeb sightings

Dressed in a gold pullover, and a navy-and-white Notre Dame baseball cap, musician Jon Bon Jovi trotted out onto the Notre Dame sidelines before the game and exchanged a spirited bromance handshake with Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly.

Bon Jovi, 50, has attended numerous Notre Dame games this season.

Former Tennessee Titans and Ohio State running back Eddie George and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin were also on the sidelines before the game. Manchin knows Alabama coach, and fellow, West Virginian Nick Saban.

ESPN ban for Tide

Alabama coach Nick Saban has long been known as a control freak. This week was no exception.

ESPN reported that Saban had the Fontainebleau Hotel make ESPN unavailable in the Alabama players’ hotel rooms from Sunday onward.